“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!'” Luke 17:5 (NIV)

How many among us have that same desire to increase our faith? How many can honestly say, “God, give me more faith!”?

We will be surprised when we hear Jesus’ response to this question: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.'” Luke 17:6 (NIV)

There is no more or less faith. All we need is the smallest seed of faith and we will experience miracles. After all, it is not “us” who make the miracles, it’s our loving Heavenly Father who loves us beyond comprehension. What is necessary is for us to experience our loving Father in heaven more fully.

However, the Gospel declares: “All these God-signs he had given them and they still didn’t get it, still wouldn’t trust him.” John 12:37 (MSG). In other words, there are many who think they have faith; but if they don’t trust in the trinity, they really don’t.

When we ask for more faith, what we are asking is for help in trusting to our Heavenly Father. It’s up to us to do so. We either completely trust Him, or we are fickle and decided to trust Him for certain things, but not for everything. Jesus couldn’t force people to trust Him. It was up to individuals to decide if they would trust Him or not.

Once we start to trust Him, our eyes open wide, and we see our Father in a different light. The more we experience Him, the more we will trust Him. It’s not about a formula; it’s all about relationship. We realize that we have nothing to worry about. Our trust towards our Father will be multiplied exponentially as we come to know Him.

Just as a father will always respond when his son asks something of him, so our Heavenly Father does the same. There are times when we are discouraged and our trust has become almost invisible. During such times, we are focused more on ourselves. No wonder we feel miserable! At times too, miracles don’t occur. Clearly it’s not our Father’s fault. Sometimes our focus changes direction for the worse. The only One who never focused on Himself was Jesus Himself. His focus was solely on His Father and towards others.

The good news is that the more we walk with Him, the more we know Him; and the more we know Him, the more our trust will develop exponentially, so abundant that a sycamore tree will fly up in the sky and crash in the water. Nothing will be able to stop us. After all, our Heavenly Father is a good, good Father. He works with us. We are a team focused on helping others.

One of our volunteers, Candy, possibly had cancer. The doctor had seen something nasty and ordered a biopsy. When all the results came back, this is what occurred, written by Candy herself:

“Initial biopsy: what they saw initially they could not find.” Where was it? It was as if it had vanished and all bleeding miraculously stopped. This is very good news. The only thing they are waiting on now is the sonogram and pictures of the internal organs which was done on the 10th of August. That is the only one that hasn’t arrived yet. I anticipate more good news.”

She late conformed that the doctor’s final report was that all was clear.

Walking with our Heavenly Father certainly will bring us closer to Him, so much that we will have nothing to fear.

Do you have faith?

Rob Chaffart

(To access the entire “The Forgotten Message” devotional series, please click here.)